RE: guru for Sada-ji

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--- kuntimaddi sadananda <kuntimaddisada

wrote:

> --- ken knight <anirvacaniya wrote:

>

> > 2) vijnAna: a word used variously by different

> > teachers but defined by Shankara in his commentary

> on

> > the Ait. Up. III which has some relevant passages

> if

> > we take guru to be ‘Self’..

>

> Ken - now you got me curious - can you complete the

> no. 2) item fully

> the relavance of the passage.

 

Namaste Sada-ji,

Oh dear. As I said, I felt that the exercise of

chasing the dhAttus as given by Panini was possibly

taking me too far away from the earlier references to

the sUktas and the definition of guru as the

'dispeller of darkness or ignorance.' And that I may

have to chisel away to make the findings fit the

context of the original posting. I should probably

have omitted the second dhAtvartha but as Panini had

given it I posted it.

 

When Panini gives the dhAtvartha as vijnAna then for

the purpose of this discussion only, I would suggest

that knowledge could be a form of inner guru. But then

we would have to ask 'knowledge of what?' or 'What is

knowledge?' which would take us on a long journey.

That is why I stopped and probably should not have

included that second dhAtvartha.

 

However, in case there is something to be unravelled

here:

This journey is one in which I get very confused

because different writers seem to interchange the

meanings of jnAna and vijnAna. Dictionary definitions

do not help clarify and some give both as

'consciousness.'

 

So I thought that it best to refer to the way Shankara

uses the word vijnana in his commentary on Aitareya

Upanishad III.1.1-4. III.1.2 which lists the 'names of

consciousness', nAmadheyAni prajnAnasya. In this Swami

Gambhirananda translates Shankara's commentary as

defining vijnAnam as '(secular) knowledge of the arts

etc.'

I chose this passage as it leads to the teaching

mahAvAkya 'prajnAnam brahma' in III.1.3

Ultimately consciousness is Brahman, Self; the

Atman-brahman is the ultimate guru as it were.

 

I can see how 'secular knowledge of the arts etc' can

dispel ignorance, in a step by step manner, as one of

the 16 given forms or names of consciousness but I

have questions as to that final step.

So I then went to Bhagavad Gita VII.2 in which vijnAna

is given as that direct knowledge which once it is

grasped, according to Shankara's commentary, nothing

else will remain to be known.

Ie. ignorance is dispelled as if it had never been.

 

Swami Chidbhavananda gives some explanations that I

like in his commentary on this verse:

jnAna: knowledge through tuition, mediate, sight

vijnAna: direct knowledge through intuition, immediate

and through insight.

 

 

Now you can see why I stopped before. While trying to

establish some contextual verses for the dhAtvartha I

had become involved in some extra-curricular enquiry

on the nature of knowledge as guru rather than the

word guru itself, chiselling too far maybe so I accept

any due admonishments,

 

Ken Knight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

=====

‘From this Supreme Self are all these, indeed, breathed forth.’

 

 

 

 

 

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